Wakefield figures only marginally in Gissing’s fiction, the tragic “quarry on the heath” featured in the homonymous unpublished short story (1881) and in A Life’s Morning being arguably the most memorable narrative setting traceable to Gissing’s native town. The focus on Wakefield’s bleak periphery, and the marginalization, trivialization or omission of Wakefield’s political and cultural life, is especially striking in the light of Gissing’s father’s very intense engagement in the cultural institutions and in the system of municipal government of his adoptive town. Starting from these premises, this essay surveys the handful of novels and short-stories that have – one way or another – been associated with Wakefield. Focussing especially on A Life’s Morning, Born in Exile and Denzil Quarrier it tries to make sense of what is missing, as well as to underscore what is actually there in Gissing's provincial novels, inclusive of course of the quarries and the connected, subtly pervasive, stone imagery.
THE QUARRIES ON THE HEATH: THE IMPRINT OF PLACE AND GISSING’S WAKEFIELD STORIES
Villa, Luisa
2021-01-01
Abstract
Wakefield figures only marginally in Gissing’s fiction, the tragic “quarry on the heath” featured in the homonymous unpublished short story (1881) and in A Life’s Morning being arguably the most memorable narrative setting traceable to Gissing’s native town. The focus on Wakefield’s bleak periphery, and the marginalization, trivialization or omission of Wakefield’s political and cultural life, is especially striking in the light of Gissing’s father’s very intense engagement in the cultural institutions and in the system of municipal government of his adoptive town. Starting from these premises, this essay surveys the handful of novels and short-stories that have – one way or another – been associated with Wakefield. Focussing especially on A Life’s Morning, Born in Exile and Denzil Quarrier it tries to make sense of what is missing, as well as to underscore what is actually there in Gissing's provincial novels, inclusive of course of the quarries and the connected, subtly pervasive, stone imagery.
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